


swallowed hearts

by Ahria



Category: Psych
Genre: 5+1 Things, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahria/pseuds/Ahria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The slowest love story in history; Shawn's always known but Gus takes some convincing or five times Shawn kissed Gus, and one time Gus kissed back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swallowed hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grue/gifts).



> This is for grue, for her constant enthusiasm, beta skills and all around awesomeness.

 

> _I swallow your heart and you make me_  
>  _spit it up again. I swallow your heart and it crawls_  
>  _right out of my mouth._  
>  _You swallow my heart and flee, but I want it back now, baby. I want it back_ \- Dirty Valentine, Richard Siken

 

**i.**

The sun burns across the desert sands as GI Joe leads his invincible army towards Cobra Command’s Super Awesome Sand Fort of Doom (Cobra’s Secret Base of Doom was also considered but ultimately rejected when the two boys realized it couldn’t really be a _secret_ base if it took up most of the sand box).   He-Man (GI Joe’s best friend/right hand man) wrangles the Army T-Rex while Cobra makes a boring bad guy speech Shawn is reciting from last Thursday’s episode.

Suddenly, Joe hops on the back of the T-Rex (with a little help from Gus) and together they perform a truly impressive front flip, right into Cobra, taking him down in one fatal move.  Shawn is so impressed, he doesn’t even get mad that he didn’t get to finish his speech- instead he leans in and lands a smacking kiss on Gus’s mouth.

“What’d’ya do that for?” the six year old asks, frowning suspiciously at his best friend.

“Because that was awesome!” Shawn replies, grinning enthusiastically.   “and ‘cuz I like you.  My mom and dad like each other and they kiss all the time.”

Gus thinks it over and can’t find any fault in the other boy’s logic.  His parents like each other and they kiss all the time too. 

Before he can answer though, the Thompson boys from down the street execute a water balloon sneak attack that demolishes the Super Awesome Sand Fort of Doom and gets Gus’s new favorite shirt wet. 

Shawn is on his feet and heading towards the super soakers before the last balloon hits the ground.

**ii.**

Shawn and Gus are twelve years old.  Christine Lewis is the first girl in their class to invite them to her boy-girl birthday party.  Cake and pizza and awkward pre-adolescent flirting turns into a rousing game of spin the bottle out in the drive way.

It’s Gus’s turn to spin.  There’s a part of him that’s pretending not to hope for the bottle to land on his best friend.  Gus had started noticing (really _noticing_ ) girls _and_ boys about a year ago. Noticing Shawn in particular.

His parents and the priest at church all seem pretty sure that Jesus doesn’t want boys to kiss other boys so Gus has always kept this to himself.  He hasn’t even told Shawn, and he tells Shawn everything.  He doesn’t want his friend to look at him different and he doesn’t want to make Jesus mad.  But right now if he kisses Shawn, it will only be because of the rules of a game- and you don’t break the rules of a game because that’s just bad sportsmanship.

Gus spins the bottle and pretends not to hope and maybe he sorta did the math in his head (force vs. velocity) and the bottle stops spinning, narrow end pointing directly towards Shawn.  The group erupts into hoots of excited laughter.

 Gus swallows nervously and gets up on his knees to lean across the circle.  Shawn mimics him, waiting with an expectant look on his face.   Gus panics- he can’t do this, especially not in front of all these people.  He starts to back away and Shawn’s giving him a “will you just get on with it and stop making me look bad?” glare but Gus ignores him and is still leaning away. 

In one quick motion Shawn rolls his eyes, grabs Gus’s shoulder and kisses him on the mouth.  He’s sitting down and accepting the cat-calls and shocked laughter with a good natured smile before Gus can even process what just happened. 

Shawn holds his gaze for a long moment before Gus finally looks away.

**iii.**

College is a long four years for Gus.  He does his best to keep himself occupied, to try new things and to figure out who the hell he is now that he’s finally out of Shawn’s shadow.  Until this point, he’s always been half of a unit, only part of a whole entity.  This is the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Freshman year blurs by in a haze of classes, clubs and the occasional party.  Letters and post cards from Shawn are tucked neatly away in a shoe box in his closet.  They don’t come as often as he would like.

Sophomore year is more of the same.  He thinks he’s doing okay until he gets a birthday post card from Argentina.  It hits him, hard, that he hasn’t seen Shawn in a year and a half and he has no idea when his friend will be coming back to California.

That night, he finally says yes to drinks with the cute sandy-haired boy from down the hall.  He sneaks out of Derek’s room that next morning while having the biggest panic attack of his life.

Three weeks later he finds himself on spring break in Mexico, drinking away his shame.  That, of course, leads to him marrying a crazy fire-breathing bar tender named Mira.

A year after that, two of his supposed best friends sleep with his girlfriend.

Gus is ready to graduate and leave college behind.  He doesn’t have the degree he thought he would but he’s proud of himself anyway. 

It’s been four years since he’s seen Shawn so he tells himself that it’s shock and not attraction that zings through him when his best friend plants himself right in front of him in the student center.

“Shawn!  You-You’re _here_.” Is all he can say.  The other man smirks.

“Like I’d miss all this?” Shawn says, gesturing to the graduation cap and gown slung over Gus’s arm. 

They’re both smiling and Gus is pulling him into a hug before he can help himself.  Shawn lingers against him for a long moment, hands tight on Gus’s shoulders.  As Shawn finally pulls away, he presses a kiss to the corner of Gus’s mouth.  The pressure is light, there and gone in a second.  Gus wishes he had the courage to react.  Instead, he ignores the thumping of his heart and pretends it didn’t happen at all.

Shawn follows suit, only the quickest flash of disappointment in his eyes as he grins and wraps an arm around Gus’s shoulders.  Soon they’re bickering and joking like they’d seen each other yesterday.

**iv.**

It’s been one week since Abigail broke it off for good and Shawn is miserable. 

Mr. Yin is still out there, undoubtedly plotting something horrible and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it until the psycho makes his next move. 

Shawn deals with these facts by getting incredibly, ridiculously drunk.

Gus tags along and has a couple drinks but stops when he figures out exactly what Shawn is doing.  He spends the rest of the night doing his best to keep his idiot friend out of trouble.

The fake psychic only gets punched once and Gus considers it a miracle.  He ignores Shawn’s “my face hurts” whining during the whole seven minute drive to the office. 

He drags the drunk inside, drops him on a chair without even a hint of gentleness.

“Your motor cycle keys are in your desk drawer.  If you try to drive tonight, I will find out and I _will_ kill you, Shawn.  Do you understand me?”

Instead of answering, the other man surges to his feet, teeters and grabs Gus’s shoulders for balance.  There’s barely an inch of space between them and Gus freezes.

“Stay.” Shawn says and he’s staring at, staring _through_ Gus in the way he’s always found both impressive and annoying.

There’s sinful promise in Shawn’s eyes as he leans in and it’s almost enough to make Gus give in but then the drunk murmurs, “I can’t be enough for her.  But I’m enough for you, aren’t I Gus?”

Gus feels like he’s been punched in the chest and stumbles backwards. 

Shawn doesn’t let go.  Instead, he roughly pulls Gus forward and shoves a kiss against his open, protesting mouth.  The kiss is rough, desperate and tastes like tequila.

Gus shoves his friend away and the other man tumbles backwards into the chair.

“Of course I’m not.” Shawn gives a self-deprecating laugh that’s mean around the edges.  “Besides, wouldn’t want you to peak your head out of the closet.”

Of course Shawn knows his deepest, most closely guarded secret.  Why on Earth would he assume any different?  He’s only known the man for thirty years.

The fake psychic lifts a finger to his temple to, gearing up to make another observation that Gus doesn’t think their friendship can survive. 

“Not another damn word, Shawn!” Gus growls in frustration.

Even drunk, asshole Shawn seems to realize how close he is to the friendship ending line and promptly shuts his mouth and drops his hand into his lap.

Gus’s shoulders relax, if only just a little.

“I’m nobody’s rebound.” He says quietly, surprising them both.  He storms out of the office without a backwards glance.

**v.**

It has been an absolutely hellish week.

The case has everyone, police and fake psychic alike, completely stumped. 

Shawn responds to this in typical Spencer fashion, which is to say, he becomes petty and churlish and gets them banned from the police station.  That just kicks his behavior from obnoxious to obsessively frenzied. 

Concern sets in on day four when Shawn starts making references and leaps in logic that even Gus can’t follow.

Finally, on day six, Shawn figures it out.  He bursts into Gus’s apartment at three in the morning, yelling excitedly about dirt on the victim’s earlobe and the city park and knowing who the killer is.

Gus barely has enough time to tug on jeans before he’s dragged out the door and stuffed into his own car.  Since he’s the only one with any sense, he phones the police and tells them where to show up.

Eventually they park by the docks and no, Gus has no idea how the docks tie in because it’s 3:15 AM and it’s been a long week and he just doesn’t care at this point.

They sneak down towards the perpetrator‘s boat, ignoring Lassie’s “wait for us, that’s an order!” and end up on the wrong side of a gun.  Shawn is elated by this development, taking it as proof of his crime solving genius.  He gloats, snarks and acts like a jackass as he stalls.

“Call the police and tell them you were wrong about me!” the man demands frantically and cocks the gun.  The fake psychic smirks and doesn’t move.

“I won’t ask you again!” he yells and the gun swings to the left, level with Gus’s chest.

Shawn’s face loses its humor as he extrapolates the bullet’s trajectory.

The next few moments are all a blur to Gus. 

The perp pulls the trigger.  Shawn’s eyes are wide and panicked as he shoves Gus further to the left (maybe those things happened in reverse or at the same time, he still isn’t sure). 

There’s an explosion of sound and a burning pain across his ribs as he is propelled backwards.  The back of his head hits the ground and stars explode before his eyes. 

He thinks he hears the sounds of a struggle, of fist meeting flesh, of curses and threats and unchecked rage.

He feels Shawn’s hands on his throat, his chest, his stomach.  Hears desperation that sounds like “No, no, no, nonononono.” And “You’re okay, you’re okay _, you’re okay_.”

His fire engine pajama top is being torn aside, buttons popping, flying away as Shawn inspects the wound.

Then Shawn is pulling him into his lap, hands clamped over the injury.  His voice is hysteric while muttering “Thank you, thank you, thank God.” In between pressing his lips to Gus’s mouth.

Gus figures he must be ok, then, even if it still hurts like hell. 

He lets Shawn hold him and berates him for his crap planning, voice breathy, until the police show up.

**i.**

Shawn strides into Gus’s apartment at 10:30 PM like he lives there.

“Whatever case you think we need to be on is waiting ‘til morning.” He warns before Shawn can open his mouth.  His friend smiles and sits weirdly close, snatches the remote and turns off the TV.

Gus wants to complain but he doesn’t have the energy and they both know he’s TiVo-ing the show anyway, so he just stares expectantly at his best friend.

“My father just dropped some disturbingly accurate knowledge on me tonight.” Shawn begins and does his best to play it cool.  Gus nods slowly.

“He told me why I’ve never been able to make a relationship work.  You know how much I hate agreeing with him.  In fact, doing so might actually make me break out in hives.  Look!  Right there.  Is that a hive?  It’s itchy. I feel itchy.” He rambles, shoving his arm towards Gus’s face.

“Shawn?” Gus says patiently, ignoring the arm and the rambling.

“Right.” He pauses, takes a breath.  His eyes have that exact combination of brightness and intensity that always heralds a crazy idea.

Gus feels oddly calm and simply waits.

 “So anyway, I think he might be onto something this time.  He says, um, it turns out we’ve been in love since we were five and I can’t seem to get over that.” Shawn announces and waits a beat.

Gus wonders why he’s not panicking.  He decides it’s because he’s thirty seven years old.  He’s a grown-ass man and it doesn’t matter what his parents or the priest think, and he’s pretty confident that he and Jesus can work it out.

Something decades old relaxes in Gus’s chest and he dips his chin in agreement. 

Shawn’s relieved smile is so brilliant that it kind of hurts, but in a good way.

“He thinks we should man up already.”

“It’s not his worst advice.” Gus concludes and Shawn chuckles as he pulls his friend close.

This time when Shawn kisses him, Gus sinks right into it.


End file.
